Polite Conversation
HAVINGSHAVEDand trimmed his moustache and added a little grease to its upturned points,’Un was seated in the hotel veranda chair waiting for the first invitation to a drink before dinner.
The job suited his temperament, and he was now satisfied with a small but regular wage, following the fiery years he had chased Dame Fortune, starved in the chase, accepted her generous gifts, and drunk himself to the grave’s very edge… to begin the cycle all over again. He took pride in his contribution to the bottle ring round Agar’s Lagoon, and, having carted to the ring the empties of the previous day, and having swept the back and front of the premises, cut wood for the kitchen fire, peeled the potatoes and mopped out the bar, he was entitled to his leisure.
The hens were with their lord and master; the town goats were unconcerned; and beyond the post office at the far end of the township an unusual number of aborigines were camped along the bed of a water-gutter.
Several people had come to town that day, and ’Un anticipated a very busy evening behind the bar counter, as Ted Ramsay was already approaching that condition when insensibility overtook him with remarkable acceleration. Then there was Constable Irwin with the half-caste Inspector who had been looking into theStenhouse shooting, and from the plane which had arrived that morning had come aP.M. G. Inspector, and a Mrs Gray with her two children from Perth.
Yes, life wasn’t so bad for ’Un. A little work, a little money, plenty of free beer, and an almost endless procession of guests who seldom stayed more than one night furnished all he needed to ask.
When Bony appeared from the private entrance, ’Un immediately vacated the chair, smiled at this guest, and said:
“How’s things, Inspector?”
“Well, but dry,” replied Bony, seating himself. “I’m tired of being jerked about on your splendid highways. Ah! This is good! Think you could bring a couple of beers?”
“Yes, I’ll get ’em.”
’Un brought the drinks, and sat on the floor with his back to a veranda post. He gave all the local news he considered worthy of telling, and omitted an item which had interested Bony, who observed:
“The blacks appear to be quite numerous.”
“Yes, ain’t they? Must be going to have a corroboree or something. Poor critters… bloody Orstraliaain’t done much for ’em. Still, if I don’t eat youyou eat me, and that’s the way of the world all over.”
“Yes, there’s jungle warfare among the best of us,” agreed Bony, producing money and handing his empty glass to the obliging yardman. War! War between the criminal and the policeman, between the boss and the bossed, between men and women who poison with kindness since it is no longer fashionable to slay with weapons or hire assassins. How the little yardman had survived in this land of iron was quite a little mystery in itself, for he was a gentle soul. Returning with the drinks, he resumed his position with his back to the veranda post and winked.
“Place getting quite important. A Police Inspector and a Post Office Inspector staying here at the same time. DaveBundred’ll have to stick his nose into his records for a day or two. Always behind to hell. Be worse, too, if his wife didn’t do most of the work.”’Un laughed from somewhere down in his boots. “The monthly rain sheet blew out of the winder once and a goatet it. Terrific to-do. Near the end of the month and it had rained every day. So we played darts and put down the highest score as the daily points. Record month for rain that was.”
“I wonder that DaveBundred hasn’t sought a post office down south,” murmured Bony. “The Department doesn’t insist on its officers remaining here for years.”
“No, it didn’t insist, but Dave won’t go down south. Nothing to go with. What he don’t pour down his neck he sends away to the bookies. The horses have had him in for years. Now me, I never gambled on racing, and not much on cards. But I gambledmore’n a bit onmeself. Another? Right away.”
Having again been attended to by the yardman, Bony tried another question which might lead somewhere:
“Much mailgo through Agar’s Lagoon?”
“Fair amount,” replied ’Un.
“Most of it air-mail, I suppose?”
“All of it. Good deal of freight, as well. Then there’s more telegraph work than you’d think. I’ve often given MrsBundred a hand with the mail when Dave’s beennon compos, so I’d know.”
“Yes, there must be a great deal of mail orders in a district like this, although the population per square mile would be about decimal nought one. No shops but the general store, no frills for the ladies, serviceable working clothes for the men. Don’t think I’d like it much, what with week-old newspapers and no books.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” opposed ’Un. “People up here get plenty of books. Libraries send ’emup. Fair amount come from libraries. Iuster pay two quid a quarter for three books a fortnight. Westerns I like best. Zane Grey’s always good. He oughta have come out here. He was pretty good at describing deserts and sunsets and things.”
“Suppose most of the books sent up are Westerns or mysteries,” prompted Bony.
“No. Some people go in for travel books, like theLangs, especially Bob Lang, and one of his sisters is studying handcrafts. TheBreens, they don’t get many books, but what they do get is pretty solid. Ezra told me he was studying stock breeding, aiming to improve their cattle.”
“Oh! Buy them or obtain them from a library?”
“Library. Great reader, Ezra. Always was ever since he came home from hisschoolin ’ in Broome. The others can’t hardly read a paper, ’ceptin’ Kimberley.”
Bony lit another cigarette, emptied his glass, added another question to his list:
“Where does Ezra get his books, d’you know?”
“Yes, I can tell you that,” replied ’Un.“Handled ’emenough, what with entering the parties in the receipt book and the registered dispatch list. Bloke namedSolly, stationer, Peppermint Grove, near Perth, sends ’emup for Ezra Breen. Sends up a parcel amonth, and Ezra sends down a parcel a month. Did hear… can’t remember who told me… thatSolly is a sort of relation to theBreens. Now me, Iain’t gotno relations, but I had me will made.”
“Wise man,” Bony smiled.
“Reckon everyone oughta have their will made. I’ve a bit saved up, and when I kick off I might have a tidy bit of cake in the kip or I may be broke. D’youknow who I made me heir?”
“No. Who?”
’Untwirled the points of his white moustache. Slowly a smile stole into his faded grey eyes and removed the emphasis of his long and pointed chin.
“I leave all I possess… that’s after the bloodyGov’ment takes its whack… to old Pluto. He’s the chief of them wild blacks on the Musgrave Range. Put me and Paddy the Bastard on to a bit o’ gold once, and I haven’t forgotten. Fun’s going to be when my solicitor starts wanting to pay out to Pluto, or his heirs and assigns. Pluto and hiscrowd’s so wild that he won’t be able to get within a million miles of ’em. People reckon I’m the only white man alive, nowStenhouse’s dead, who’s ever seen Pluto… and ever likely to. Think when a bloke’s dead he can see what’s going on down here?”
“Some authorities say yes and others say no,” stalled Bony.
“Well, I hope I can watch the antics of that solicitor tearing all over the country trying to catch up with Pluto and hand him my cake. I told him that Pluto owned the pub here and that the beer is always good. Hi! That’s the dinner bell.”
Bony was still laughing at ’Un’spictures when he joined Irwin and Clifford at the table reserved for them. Irwin’s reaction was a guffaw of laughter. Clifford was more restrained.
“Can’t recall where I last heard the word ‘cake’ applied to money,” Bony said.
“Not used nearly as much as it used to be,” Irwin told him.“Cake! That word, and when I see cake, will always remind me of Kim Breen taking her cake from that hat box. Gosh! What a place to keep it!”
“And locked up, too.”
“Have to lock it up, sir. Those lubras would go around on hands and knees licking cake crumbs off the floor.”
“It was certainly delicious. By the way, do you see the post office inspector here?”
Irwin indicated a lean man at an adjacent table. He was as weather-pickled as the constables, differing only from these northern men in the clothes he was wearing.
“The name’s Linton,” murmured Irwin. “Fred Linton. Good bloke. Done more travelling around than I’ll do if I live to be a hundred.”
“Do you know him… personally?”
“Oh, yes. I know all these Government people. The bloke next to him is the chief telegraph linesman between here and Wyndham. How many telegraph postsd’you reckon there are? He says he’s climbed every one of them. There’s 4,262, plus ten sixty-five-feet-high towers.”
“Must have had a lot of splinters in his hands.”
“All iron posts.”
“I’d be obliged if you would introduce me to Mr Linton,” Bony said, casually. “I see Doctor Morley dining with a lady. What do you know about him, Irwin?”
“Fair amount, I think. Came here long before I was born. Practised here for years, but he couldn’t have earned enough to keep himself in grog. People too healthy. Never get sick until they’re ready to drop dead.”
“Private income?”
The Senior Constable chuckled.
“Must have. Hell of a good doctor, though. Done some astonishing things with accidents… amputated legs and arms all on his own, and no one died that I heard.”
“Popular?”
“Quickest way to get to a hospital is to say, ‘To hell with Doc Morley.’ ”
The waitress removed plates and served jam roly-poly.
“I wonder…” murmured Bony, and said no more until he was drinking his coffee. “Would Doctor Morley be so obliging as to extract bullets and stitch up knife wounds without asking inconvenient questions, d’you think?”
Irwin grinned.
“Been known to.”
“H’m! Well, that dinner was a credit to the gentleman who is apt to smoke while he cooks.”
Rising together they left the dining-room for the front veranda, and there Bony was introduced to the postal department inspector.
“Glad to meet you,” Linton said as though he meant it, and examined Bony with eyes accustomed to probing. Irwin explained that Linton’s district covered the entire north of the State.
“Easy compared with what it used to be,” admitted Linton,“ ’ad to travel on horseback. Then motor transport. Now it’s air. Just as well. I’m not getting younger.”
“Been up here long?”
“Forty years, almost.”
“Country appears to have claimed you.”
“It has and it hasn’t,” qualified the postal department inspector. “Family’s grown up, and my home is down south. Young generation won’t leave the city. Must have the bright lights… the films and dances. I couldn’t stay put, not after all these years.”
“No, it’s good to roam. Couldn’t imagine Irwin in a cage, could you?” The Senior Constable chuckled. “By the way, do you happen to know a place called Peppermint Grove?”
“Between Perth and Fremantle. Yes, I know it.”
Bony beamed.
“D’youknowpeople there namedSolly… bookseller?”
“Yes, there’s twoSollys, as a matter of fact. Brothers. One has the bookshop and the other’s a jeweller.”
Again Bony beamed.